Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease... Die!

When we were visiting family over the Easter weekend, Xavier got a really bad diaper rash.  He also was nursing some red bumps on his chin that we thought were due to how much drool he's been producing lately.  The chin bumps and diaper rash got worse over the weekend and we assumed Xavier picked up an allergy to my dad's dog.  He was a major fuss-face on Sunday, so we got him some baby Zyrtec and it put him to sleep for a few hours.  He was fussy all day, which isn't like him.

On Monday morning, I went to drop him at daycare and after seeing his chin bumps, they asked me to get him seen by a doctor.  They said it looked like HFMD and they didn't want it to spread at the center.  HFMD mostly affects kids until they are 5 years old.  It's kind of like the new chicken pox.  Since there is a vaccine for chicken pox, the new thing kids get now is HFMD.  It's highly contagious because kids have it up to 6 days before they show symptoms (usually in the form of blisters) of having it.  This period is known as the incubation period.  So they are drooling on toys and playing with other kids, not knowing they are contagious.  Some kids get a fever during incubation, Xavier never had one.  Adults are usually immune to it because they've likely built antibodies to it from other illnesses.

Sure enough, that's exactly what it was.  The doctor also said he had an ear infection in both ears and an allergic reaction to something on his stomach. What a trooper my little guy is!  Other than being more fussy than usual on Sunday, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary!  Since he had tons of ulcers in his mouth, daycare wouldn't let him come back for 3 whole days.  

His diaper rash got even worse on Monday and it had turned from red bumps to big red blisters all over the diaper area, front and back, and it spread to the tops of his thighs.  These blisters were huge, gross, and looked painful.  He seemed to never be in pain from them, but every time I changed his diaper, I felt nauseous, because it seemed so awful for him to have that on his little body.  The red bumps spread to cover the tops of his hands and both legs, from thigh to foot.  The bumps were raised so when I touched his legs I could feel them.  Ugh, so awful for me to go through.  Probably not so bad for him.  He ate okay and I did give him Ibuprofen, which seemed to put him in a better mood.  We spent most of Monday snuggling on the couch, watching Baby Einstein videos.

We heard that diaper cream works for helping the blisters heal faster.  So Monday night, we slathered his diaper area in Desitin Maximum Strength (highest zinc oxide content we could find) and by Tuesday morning his blisters were gone.  It was amazing.  He still had some on his thighs, but not nearly as bad as before.

By Wednesday, he was back to his old self, happy, playful, smiling.  I, on the other hand, got sick on Wednesday and had to call off the rest of the week due to a sinus infection.

Oh, and he decided to pick up crawling while being home sick.

Time to lock down everything in the house! :D